Chinese and French traditions in Chen Qigang's Piano Concerto

Abstract

The subject of the research is the concerto for piano and orchestra "Erhuang" by the contemporary Chinese-French composer Chen Qigang (1951). The work, written in the mature period of the master's work, clearly demonstrates an artistically convincing synthesis of national and European musical traditions. Chinese influences are associated primarily with the reliance on the characteristic features of the Peking Opera jingju, French influences are due to the influence of the Impressionist style of Claude Debussy and the principles of musical writing by Olivier Messiaen, whose student was Chen Qigang. The main purpose of the study is to characterize the original features of the Erhuang concerto, due to the combination of influences from the Peking Opera and French music of the 20th century. The concert "Erhuang", one of the most repertoire works in the composer's heritage and a representative example of his style, is considered for the first time in Russian musicology. The main conclusions of the study: the national traditions of the Peking Opera are presented in the concert "Erhuang" on the modal modes (pentatonic scale of zhi), metro-rhythmic (patterns of luo gu dian zi), forma (traditional variations of banqiang ti) and timbre (imitation of the instruments of the Peking Opera ensemble and their tuning system) levels; French influences manifest themselves in a colorful harmonic palette (the influence of Debussy's musical language), as well as in the reception of Messiaen's technique (the theory of additional duration, the method of irregular increase and decrease in rhythm, the principle of motivic combinatorics, the sequential change of modes of limited transposition).